In a virtual interaction with state chief ministers over the pandemic situation and the ongoing vaccination drive, Modi said in states like Maharashtra, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh the number of COVID cases has seen a rise while nearly 70 districts in the country have seen an increase in the positivity rate by over 150 per cent of late.
While JioMart is doing 250,000 orders per day, BigBasket and Amazon pantry are doing 220,000 and 150,000 orders, respectively.
With the recovery rate rising to 82.14 per cent, the ministry said India has maintained its top global ranking in total recoveries with such high successive single-day numbers.
Both Jet Airways and Go First have met with a similar fate of landing up in insolvency, albeit for different reasons. Whether Go First will be able to avoid the sharp erosion in value like in the case of Jet, experts say, will depend on how quickly it is able to restart operations and retain its slots at airports. Go First, owned by the Wadia group, filed for voluntary corporate insolvency resolution on May 2 due to inadequate capacity utilisation that led to a cash crunch.
The spike in the country's financial capital has got pronounced since December 20, when just 283 cases were reported. Tuesday had witnessed 1,377 cases in the metropolis, and Wednesday's figure was a jump by over 80 per cent, he pointed out.
This week, global drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech said their COVID-19 vaccine candidate is 95 per cent effective, including in adults over 65 years of age.
The minister said this underlying resentment and pain of those countries regarding the global economy was building up for the last 15-20 years and the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine conflict resulted in prices of energy and food items going up.
Any judgement on whether the March numbers reflect sustainable growth in GST collection should ideally await the numbers that will be out in May, points out A K Bhattacharya.
The Union health ministry, however, suggested necessary curbs in areas reporting over 10 per cent positivity rate or 40 per cent occupancy in either oxygen-supported or ICU beds.
Though Covid cases are rising in Delhi and its satellite towns, the focus should be on hospital admissions that have remained the same or changed just marginally, say several scientists, underscoring that the uptick is not an indication of a fourth wave in the country at this point.
'In our ICUs, the majority are unvaccinated people.' 'Out of the hospital, in the community, we see that -- whether you are vaccinated or whether you're not vaccinated -- the symptoms are more or less the same.'
The ICMR said people having symptoms like fever, cough, sore throat and runny nose and residing in hotspots or cluster areas and in evacuee centres will now be tested for coronavirus infection.
The Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which works with one dose instead of two, got approval on Saturday, the third vaccine cleared in the country after emergency use authorisation (EUA) was given to two-dose shots from Pfizer and Moderna in December last year.
Deaths are significantly less in the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in comparison to the second wave, and the current surge is not witnessing increase in severe illness or death following high vaccination uptake, the government said on Thursday.
The ministry said the mutated UK strain was detected in eight samples at the National Centre for Disease Control, one at the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani (near Kolkata), one at the National Institute of Virology Pune, seven at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences Hospital Bengaluru, two at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad and one at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi.
The Covid-19 vaccine demonstrated an overall 90.4 per cent efficacy in phase 3 clinical trials, reports Sohini Das
These upcoming oxygen plants include those being built with the contribution from the PM CARES fund as well as from various ministries and PSUs, it said.
Providing data, it said UK's Public Health England has reported high vaccine effectiveness (87.9 per cent) against the B.1.617.2 variant, most reported in India, in an observational study (concluded on May 22, 2021).
The new order will impact cities like Nagpur, Thane and Pune as they had seen more relaxations than Mumbai, which continued to be under 'level 3' restrictions, despite qualifying for 'level 1' where all curbs are allowed to be lifted.
"I pray to them with folded hands that COVID cases will only increase due to this (behaviour). It is wrong when you reach for ICU beds at the last moment," Karnataka Revenue Minister R Ashoka said.
'Because of a little out of sight, out of mind, I did end up losing out on good projects.'
Bajaj Finance was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, surging around 9 per cent, followed by IndusInd Bank, L&T, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC, SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, ONGC and Axis Bank. On the other hand, Tech Mahindra, HCL Tech, Infosys, Nestle India, Sun Pharma and TCS closed in the red.
China on Monday defended its visa curbs which have prevented thousands of stranded Indians from returning to Beijing, saying they are "appropriate" to control the spread of COVID-19 and do not target India alone, but are applied to even Chinese citizens coming back from overseas.
As daily testing of samples of blood and throat and nose swabs crossed two lakh for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic, over 14,000 new coronavirus cases were registered in the country for the fifth day in a row to take the total count to 4,56,183, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
The report came at the time when British-based health data firm Airfinity, said that the infections in China are likely to be more than one million a day with deaths at more than 5,000 a day.
The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation said while the rights, safety, and well-being of trial subjects were of paramount importance, protocol amendment, deviation or modification might be necessary in some cases owing to unavoidable circumstances.
Pakistan play a three-match Test series against England starting on August 5, followed by three T20 International matches.
Japan's Naomi Osaka said on Sunday that while she has spent her entire life waiting to compete at the Olympics, the risks of holding the Tokyo Games amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic should continue to be carefully discussed.
Indian athletics chief coach Radhakrishnan Nair said the athletes were prepared for the Hangzhou Asian Games but the postponement should lesson their workload this season.
The data gaps are inhibiting sound decisions. We need to know seroprevalence, infection, and vaccination rates. This is required in 200 cities of India, every week, suggests Ajay Shah.
In an official communication to concerned national sports federations, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) has informed them about about the staying arrangements and the need to undergo an RT-PCR test for COVID-19 72 hours prior to their arrival in the UK.
With more than 21 lakh migrant workers returning to the state as per official data, the Nitish Kumar government faces an enormous challenge in providing jobs for them.
We need to give a booster shot to all our frontline workers first as if they fall victim to Omicron, the health system will collapse, points out Ramesh Menon.
The 'terrible' surge of the coronavirus cases in India has severely impacted COVAX's vaccine supply in the second quarter of this year to the extent that there will be a shortfall of 190 million doses by the end of June, according to a joint statement by the WHO, UNICEF, GAVI and CEPI.
The recoveries have surged to 20,37,870 in the country, while there are 6,76,514 active cases of COVID-19, according to the data updated at 8 am. The record high recoveries have ensured that active cases of coronavirus infection, the 'actual caseload' of the country, currently comprises less than 1/4th (only 24.45 per cent) of the total cases.
The average rate of COVID-19 vaccination in the country has been 10.8 million per week. At that rate, it will take India till December 2024 to complete two billion doses.
Across the country, the number of patients in ICU beds is 4,88,861 while 1,70,841 patients were on ventilators and 9,02,291 patients were on oxygen support.
Four cities, including, Delhi, Mohali, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad have been issued ticket advisories with fans being banned from carrying protest banners.
The official also said the government's official app helped generate information about 697 potential hotspots in the country.
